The "Ratio" is percent (%) of people under arms.
The advent of the Industrial Revolution causes
some skewing. The Revolutionary war was fought
before the Industrial Revolution. The impact of
the Civil War came after it was fought.

The "Served" figures are personnel maintained in
the service, the numbers among the wars prior to
1900 may lack integrity

The figures for the wars prior to 1945, also include a
substantial number of military forces that were
securing other global commitments.

Prior to the Civil War the population base figures may,
or may not, have included Blacks who were held
as slaves. The population of
enslaved Blacks were included in the base for
the Civil War statistics. Of course, after
emancipation all people were included in the
population count.

Veterans Day is observed on
November 11th without regard for the day of the week.
The date was selected to coincide and commemorate the end of
World War I which ended on November 11, 1918.Veterans day is to honor and thank all who have served honorably
in the Military whether in war or peace.
Sometimes confused with Veterans Day, Memorial
Day honors those who died in the service of America.

The
Financial Costs Chart compares the current dollar "of the time"
with the 2005 dollar. As only a rough guide, it
does give an idea of relative costs of the
eleven wars on an adjusted basis. Keep in mind
the large change in social structure; i.e.: 1776
Farmers used little money, women entered the
work force during WWII and the fact that Americans are much more
affluent today.
Pension costs are not included as also the damage to
the infrastructure during the wars on American
soil. The Confederate figures are
estimated.
The Gulf War ultimately cost the American taxpayer less
than the $61 billion expended, as many nations of the
allied coalition reimbursed 88%, $54 billion, of
the $61 billion shown, leaving the actual cost
to the U.S. of nearly $7 billion. At only $23.66
per American citizen it is one of the
least expensive American Wars.

Memorial Day is observed on
the fourth Monday of May.
Memorial Day is to honor paying tribute to those who
have served and died in action or survived and have
subsequently passed on.
Sometimes confused with Memorial Day, Veterans
Day honors all who have served in America's Armed
Forces.

Due to
various methods used to record information the
figures shown in the tables for POW - MIA are
ball-park figures to give a general Idea of what
the actual statistic is. The more recent figures
tend to be, of course, more accurate. More
specific details can be found at
Congressional Research Service.

Vietnam War POWs & MIAs

In the two months required
by the Vietnam War peace treaty (January 27, 1973 the
North Vietnamese and Viet Cong (South Vietnamese
Communist; also called the "National Liberation Front")
released 591 American POWs. 67 American civilians (not a
part of the official unaccounted) were trapped, or
stayed voluntarily after April, 1975 when South Vietnam
fell. The civilians were released by late 1976. Since
1976, Americans still imprisoned were Naturalized
Americans of Vietnamese birth or ancestry and were
mostly held on criminal offences, some "political"
crimes as defined by the Vietnamese Authorities. Only
one member of the U.S. Military has returned alive, from
Vietnam since 1973.
Marine Corps PFC Robert Garwood listed as POW by the
U.S., but not by the Vietnamese, returned voluntarily to
the U.S. in 1979 and was convicted of collaboration with
the enemy receiving a sentence that did not include
prison time.
2.583 military personnel remained unaccounted, after
the return of 591 POWs in 1973. Since the end of the war
in January, 1973, 734 identified remains have been
returned from: Vietnam, 511; Laos, 192; Cambodia, 28;
and China, 3. The Department of Defense has been
actively seeking the recovery of 1,186 remains. The DOD
expects that it will be unable to recover the remains of
663 which include the 468 men lost over water and
crewmen of aircraft that was witnessed by both Americans
and Vietnamese to have exploded without signs of
ejection.

Americans Unaccounted for in
Southeast Asia

Country of Loss

All servicemembers
in this chart are classified by the DOD as
KIA-BNR (Killed in action, Body not recovered)
and where formerly listed as a POW or MIA, a
PFOD had been made.
One POW (a Pilot) whose capture and POW status were
verified had remained listed as a POW for
symbolic reasons. In 1994 at the request of his
family his status was changed to KIA-BNR.

The
Director of the DOD Prisoner of War/Missing
Personnel Office (DPMO), also
serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
POW/Missing Personnel Affairs (DASD POW/MIA) oversees
the direction and control of DOD POW/MIA matters. The
Indochina activities are under DOD's Joint Task
Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA). The task force maintains
the files on POW/MIAs conducting interviews and research
in Indochina. The U.S. Army Central Identification
Laboratory in Hawaii (CIL-HI) has the job to identify
remains from around the world. Established separate from
the DPMO, at Congressional direction the Defense
Intelligence Agency (DIA) has its own POW/MIA
intelligence organization.
The ongoing investigations examine information from
refugees, other contacts, and assets or physical
evidence such as "dog tags," photographs, and debris of
aircraft or other equipment. Communication intel. and
aerial reconnaissance as well as open sources are also
used investigating leads of sightings or other word of
POW/MIAs. 22,519 reports concerning Americans in
Southeast Asia had been received by the U.S. between
April 1975 and September 23, 2004. Of those there were
1,956 alleged first-hand sightings with most being
resolved as many had already been accounted for. A
little less than one third were determined to have been
fabricated. A scant 45 related to incidences that
occurred and resolved during the war prior to 1975. The
focus remained on 14 sightings of Americans with 13
captive and one non-captive. Of those 11 were reported
to have occurred between 1973 and 1976; two between 1976
and 1980; and one occurring since 2000.
Access to aircraft crash sites, Vietnamese records,
Vietnamese civilians has greatly increased since 1971
allowing the permanent presence of U.S. military and
civilian personnel to investigate POW/MIA reports. From
September 1991 throught September 2004 the status of 422
MIAs have been resolved. Duplicate information found,
and information already in U.S. hands or that pertain to
cases already resolved as well as a "Vietnamese
Government disinformation program," has made the
investigations a formidable task.